President’s Proposed Budget Seeks to Continue Horse Slaughter Ban

Great news! President Obama’s newly released FY 2015 budget proposal once again includes a request for Congress to block spending by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to inspect U.S. horse slaughter plants. If adopted, this prohibition would effectively ban horse slaughter on U.S. soil through September 2015 because only USDA-inspected meat can be sold for human consumption.

The President’s request reflects the will of the Congress, whose FY 2014 spending bill, passed in January, included the same language. (The inspection-defund language was initially introduced in the House and Senate by Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) and Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) as an amendment to the FY 2014 Agriculture appropriations bill.) However, the FY 2014 spending bill expires this September, which is why it’s critical to get the measure extended via the FY 2015 budget.

“We are grateful to the White House and USDA for their continued leadership in ensuring that American horses are not slaughtered on our own soil for foreign demand, especially in light of the recent news from Europe about the horrors of discovering horse meat mixed with frozen lasagna and other meat products,” says Nancy Perry, Senior Vice President of ASPCA Government Relations. “Wasting tax dollars on the cruelty of horse slaughter makes no sense, and we urge Congress to once again adopt this provision.”

Help us ensure that Capitol Hill hears the message to protect our horses, both here and abroad! The pro-slaughter industry will lobby intensely against this newest effort to prohibit federal dollars from being spent on horse slaughter, and our goal is to stop all American horses from experiencing the horrors of slaughter wherever it occurs, so we must continue to press for passage of the SAFE Act to ban horse slaughter permanently.

thank you for this article and for keeping the need to pass the SAFE act in the forefront of people's attention. When the U.S. prohibits the transport of horses to slaughter to Canada and Mexico, the world will be closer to abolishing horse slaughter everywhere.

This is all well and good, but in rural areas like where I live it leads to horses starving to death when owners are forced to decide between food for their families or food for the horses. Our local animal shelters are not equipped to handle horses, and even our state ASPCA chapter has no room for them. So, instead of these owners having an outlet to have these animals put down, they are forced to allow them to starve to death. And before you get on your soap box with the holier than thou argument that "if you can't afford the animal, then you shouldn't get it" you need to first realize that most of these animals were bought when owners were doing well for themselves and feeding their animals was no issue, but with the state of todays economy what you could afford comfortably yesterday can become a burden tomorrow through no fault of your own.

I'm going to get on my "high horse" and tell you the owner IS responsible, by animal cruelty laws, to take care of their animals, and if they think they are broke now, just wait until they have to pay fines and/or serve jail time for their acts of stupidity. If people reach out to authorities and ask for help, help is there in many forms, including humane euthanasia, regardless where they live. You are dead wrong to believe that slaughter is an outlet for the poor starving horse – there could be nothing further from the truth. Allowing a horse to starve to death is a very cruel and selfish act of a person who should not have owned them in the first place regardless of their financial status before and now. Most people who live in very rural areas that own animals know how to humanely kill by bullet, as sometimes they have no choice, so why starvation, I don’t understand that? Imagine the kind of person who could look out their window every morning at their starving horses in their pens slowing dying and have no compassion, what a pathetic excuse for a human being.

Loretta, you are one thousand percent correct. I grew up on a huge farm with many different types of animals. Not once did my parents allow any animal to
starve. Not just my parents either, all the surrounding farms cared for and protected their animals. Farm & ranch people do not acquire animals to watch them starve.

Well said! As with dogs and cats leaving them at a kill shelter or horses sent to auction, they have to hit the equivalent of a jack-pot in the lottery to end up in a good home! I agree, it would be torture for a loving owner to stand by their animal as they are euthanized but I would chose my own suffering before I would make one of my animals go through this kind of nightmare or watch them starve!!!
Not slaughtering on American soil is only a piece of the puzzle but nevertheless, it is vital!

I am glad we don't slaughter horses on our soil but! I am appalled at the way they slaughter in Mexico, that is where our horses are going, the large gathering of free range horses by the a government that can't take care of them, is a recipe for shipping them to Mexico, go to a horse auction and see how many meat buyers are there. We kid our-self when we think our loved horses and ponies are going to great homes, I would rather see them put down humanly than to go through that pain and confusion

Sandy, I totally agree. If you can't keep a horse, can't sell it or give it to a good home then humanely put it down. Sending it to an auction for the few hundred you might get for it only guarantees it will enter the slaughter pipeline and be on a road trip to Canada or Mexico. To bad the auction houses can't keep the kill buyers OUT !

I think that the US government should make a bill that protects all wild horses. They are the american symbol and they deserve to run wild and free like they have for hundreds of years. I do not see why we need to slaughter them and send them to mexico and canada for this. I feel that the government should have hundreds and thousands of acres of protective land for these beautiful priceless animals. Im curious who's idea it was to start capturing them and slaughtering them? I had heard a few issues about the wild horses drinking the water from farmer cattle. I also had heard about them being expensive to keep protected? I just don't understand why it would not be a priority to protect all the wild horses.